Happy New Year from all of us at Titanium Birch!
What we’re consuming
We’re trying something new for this edition of the newsletter. Rather than just sharing books we’ve read, we’ll also share video games, movies, and TV shows. Here’s what we’ve been reading, playing, and watching lately at Titanium Birch.
The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World by David Deutsch
Reading The Beginning of Infinity deepened my convictions for why Titanium Birch’s cultural values are so important to our long-term success. Knowledge grows by creatively guessing explanations, then subjecting them to criticism and testing them in experiments and remembering that anything we believe to be true might later be disproven. Our firm tries to create an environment where people are free to creatively guess explanations, to give and receive criticism on a foundation of psychological safety, and to test their ideas with data from the real-world. The book also provides the philosophical underpinnings of many of the ideas in a16z’s rousing Techno-Optimist Manifesto. — Peter
Papers, Please by Lucas Pope
In Papers, Please, you play an immigration officer at a border checkpoint, and your role is to process people entering the dystopian country of Arstotzka. The game forces you to make tough ethical choices and really juxtaposes broader social themes with individual personal stories.
The art style is very charming and reminiscent of early computer games. Additionally, the game developer wrote an excellent blog post about how he turned the originally desktop-and-mouse game into one playable on mobile phones. — TJ
Sharp Notions: Essays on the Stitching Life by Marita Dachsel (Editor), Nancy Lee (Editor)
Shameless plug: My essay, “The Boyfriend-Sweater Curse”, appears in the Sharp Notions anthology. Among knitters, there’s a belief that if you make a sweater for your boyfriend or husband, they will break up with you. Well, you can guess what happened to me! Anyway, the other day I received a delightful message from a friend’s mum in Toronto. She had cracked open a copy of this book and chanced upon my story as she rode the streetcar wearing a pair of mittens I’d made her a decade ago. What are the odds? The anthology consists of essays by knitters and other fibre artists who write about family, culture, illness, identity, loss, community, and the role “making stuff” plays in our lives. — Justina
System Collapse by Martha Wells
System Collapse is Book 7 in the Murderbot series. Opening this book almost immediately puts me into rest-mode according to my stress-tracking smart-watch toy. I guess it's good for me! Maybe it's good for others, too. It's about talking robots. — Peter
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
I last reread Frankenstein 13 years ago by flashlight during a thunderstorm while canoe camping in the Kawarthas (up in Ontario, Canada). At the time, I was left contemplating the dangers of mad genius left unchecked. This time around, I’m mostly struck by the characters’ yearning for friendship, which can be summed up in what Captain Walton writes to his sister in the opening pages: “I greatly need a friend who would have sense enough not to despise me as a romantic, and affection enough for me to endeavour to regulate my mind.” Isn’t that such a lovely way to express the essence of friendship?
Also, I think it would be cool to retrace the excursions of Victor Frankenstein and his creature/dæmon through Europe. Maybe even on a dog sled. — Justina
We hope you’ve enjoyed this latest edition of the Titanium Birch newsletter! If you haven’t yet, follow us on LinkedIn for our latest updates.
All the best,
The team at Titanium Birch
Disclaimer: The materials linked in this newsletter do not reflect the views of Titanium Birch and should not be taken as investment advice.